up the low down

Previews from the next (& last) chapbook 12, "dropping the plot"...

 

The Way of All Fish

When we the British, this bastard race, rose from the waves sporting the very epitome of European Science, Art & Culture… who could tell the empire thus created would be vanquished in the twinkling of an eye? There were those who dreamt of a thousand-year Byzantine saga with successive dynasties taking the helm of the great oversized ship. Then came those whose purpose, more honourable perhaps but further screwed up, who at heart were just square-headed Christian Soldiers. And then along come least, though surely not last, called the English Speaking Peoples (WS Churchill) and whose aim was no less than world domination - while at every point prepared to drop the name United Kingdom, United States, United Nations even.

on Lady Godiva

one ungodly hour

the aforesaid dame

fresh from slumber came

out from her bower

 

müezzins & birds

musing on the great

mindlessness of state

savoured these words

 

saddle me an ass

that I might proceed

not on warlike steed

careless of class

 

through the sleepy town

with the curtains drawn

to to greet the dawn

under a gown

 

not of silk but sack

cloth though otherwise

bare to peeping eyes

forward & back

 

*

 

thus the married nun

bride to Jessie Christ

staged her famous heist

pigtails undone

 

from her husband’s pride

she extracted tax

breaks for peasants’ backs

cost of her ride

 

goodknows what he

who’d proposed the stunt

wagering it blunt

thought of her fee

 

she’d been tampered with

like a fairy queen

dryad or obscene

urbanised myth

 

but pornographers

can’t contain her soul

sex was not her goal

justice her prayers

 

*

 

now as pageant dressed

once a year in light

leotards & tight

serfs are impressed

 

feminists remain

challenged by her nude

progress call it rude

sex on the brain

 

yet the ride goes on

sponsored year by year

even cast as queer

heckled by one

 

harmless skin parade

hardly that the church

rolling with a lurch

comes to its aid

 

virgin birth they say

underneath that skein

gentlefolk refrain

almost to pray

unpopulist lines

 

queer Starmer’s pitch

just as Bo was pipped

Corbyn would of whipped

Ritchie Wotshisbitch

sacrificial clown

 

close one eye to the treatment of cows

burning gas like there’s no end of fuse

tolerate other folks’ racist views

these are the nows

 

then their finest hour world at war

when the fascists had surrounded them

choking back a rising tide of phlegm

stuck to the core

 

values never let the bullies win

hang ’em with the rope they’ve always spun

meaning let the bastards have their fun

then do them in

 

this appeasement Trump has brokered’s no

deal it’s pure & simple cowardice

faced with blatant autocrats he’s nice

bowing that low

 

Putin laughing out of bloody hand

scarcely crediting this Yankee knave’s

attitude to the land of the brave

truth bites the sand

the mark of Epstein

 

royalty transcends

loyalty to friends

Chomsky make amends

Epstein descends

 

public life requires

higher moral fibres

talking sick desires

buzzing the wires

 

secrecy’s not yours

like revolving doors

cleaners do the chores

careful of paws

 

teenage prostitutes

nobody disputes

are forbidden fruits

leave them to brutes

 

let dictatorships

take immoral trips

punters part with tips

serfs pay with lips

Not on my Wodge!